


Aspects of a Kidnapping

by Neigedens



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:43:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neigedens/pseuds/Neigedens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You hear about these things happening, like rips in paradox space caused by the personification of the cosmos reaching out and righting itself," explained Roxy. "Which is a lot of bullshit, actually. If this cage is our cosmic destiny then I want the fuck out."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Void

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friends dancesontrains and custardpringle for the encouragement and for word warring with me on this fic. The end result, I should disclaim, is entirely my own fault.

"Mother. _Fuckers_ ," said Roxy, and that about summed it up. Living in a cage was not what had been on the agenda when the four of them had left home, but here they were. In a cage. This was not an exaggeration.

Dirk wasn't quite sure what had happened, or what you would call the phenomenon. All he had known was that one second the four of them were (literally) on top of the world that was Skaia and suddenly, in the next second, all four of them had been pulled through what Roxy had called a rip in the void.

"I've heard of them appearing before," Roxy later said. "Like black holes of causality."

"What in the ever-loving fuck is that?" Dirk had asked.

"I dunno, really. I didn't think they were real, actually, but I've sort of read about them. You hear about them happening, like rips in paradox space caused by the personification of the cosmos reaching out and righting itself. Which is a lot of bullshit, actually. If this is our cosmic destiny then I want the fuck out."

Dirk hadn't really understood a lot of that, nor had Jane and Jake by the looks of it, nor did Roxy by her own admission. What it meant, in the end, was that the four of them had been transported from (again, literally) cloud nine on Skaia to a strange, dark planet called Alternia where they had been attacked and captured almost immediately upon arriving. Dirk didn't know much about planets in the multiverse other than Earth, but he had to think that this was not the most peaceful of places fate or destiny or random flecks of void could have taken them.

They had all survived the attack, at least, but this was small comfort after the gray-skinned horned assholes took away their sylladices and put the four of them in a cage together. The head gray-skinned horned asshole went through each item in the sylladices gleefully and calculated how much he could sell each item for. This asshole claimed that he was now their owner, and that they were his slaves. He was a broker, he explained to them. This man also, incidentally, was a huge creepazoid, a concept that apparently transcended cultures and planets.

"This has to be illegal," said Jane to him. "Please. My friend thinks that we might be from another _universe_. We have no idea where we are. You have to let us go." Jane had been attempting to reason with the man, all for nothing, of course. She had started out being very patient; watching her descend into frustration with the creepazoid was providing Dirk with some very grim amusement after long hours in the cage.

"It's perfectly legal," said the creepazoid, whose name was Legule. He was busy cutting open the Geromy plush from Dirk's sylladex right down the center of its plentiful rump. The sight caused Dirk an odd internal grief in a way nothing else had yet. "Or maybe it isn't. Shit, kid, how many of these dumb dolls do you need?"

"There's a whole set," said Dirk. "The rest are in my sylladex. I'm sure they could fetch a hefty price in whatever exotic alien supermarket you'd wish to sell them at. You don't have to dismember them, I swear I don't have anything hidden inside them."

Legule snorted. "Yeah, right. I totally believe that, kid. Keep telling me how you're from another universe, too, while you're at it."

That was the positive part of the situation, or maybe it was just another negative: Legule needed liquid assets, and badly, so he was turning their sylladices inside out for anything he could hock and planning to sell the kids to the highest bidder as soon as humanly (or whatever) possible.

"At least we're together for all this," Jake said later when Legule had fallen asleep right at his desk. Legule was the only person they had seen around since they'd been captured and brought here. The four of them had just spent a useless twenty minutes attempting to reach the buttons on Legule's belt to open the cage, like a bunch of loser cattle rustlers in a shitty Western.

"Please don't give me your optimistic bullshit right now, Jake," Roxy murmured into Jane's lap, where she had collapsed. "I cannot handle it right now. Jane, can I use you as a pillow? My actual pillow smells like dead rats."

"That's fine," said Jane so softly Dirk could barely hear her. She started to brush the hair away from Roxy's face. Roxy didn't notice; she was already asleep.

"I can't sleep," announced Jake. "This is awful. Horrible. I can't stand it." Ten minutes later, Jake had collapsed, too, on the pillow that supposedly smelled of dead rat.

Dirk and Jane were the only ones left awake. This didn't surprise Dirk; he and Jane were both the worriers, he had known that from the start. She gave him a nervous look.

"I'm so scared," she told him. "I know saying it isn't very brave of me, but I can't help it."

Dirk shook his head. "It's all right. I am too."

"Yes, but you're better at looking scared than I am. I feel like everything I feel is instantly broadcast across my face, and everything I try to get us out of this just makes it worse, and--"

"Janey," he said, cutting her off suddenly before he could stop himself. "Jane. Come on. It's all right." He put his hand on her shoulder. "You're tired. Here--" He grabbed Roxy by the shoulders and forced her to sit up again.

"No, don't. You'll wake her up."

"Trust me, I've hauled her sleepwalking ass around enough times to know it. She _never_ wakes up."

"Damn right I don't," muttered Roxy with her eyes still closed.

"Go on, lay down," Dirk told Jane. She stretched out reluctantly on the large pallet that Legule had tossed into the cell. Jake was already snoring there, and as soon as Jane put her head down Roxy began snuggling up with her again.

"This place smells awful," Roxy sighed into Jane's hair. "You still smell great, though, Janey. Like vanilla. You smell like cookies."

"Does she always sleep-talk?" asked Jane, rolling her eyes.

"I think she's just fucking with you," said Dirk. "Meanwhile, English is like the snoozefest powerhouse. Like an unstoppable wall of snooze."

Jane stifled a laugh in Roxy's shoulder before looking up at Dirk. "Aren't you sleepy?"

"Not really. I'm going to keep an eye out here."

She gave him a look. "You must need rest too."

"I'll wake you up in a few hours. Then you can take my shift of watching nothing."

Jane nodded. She'd already started to close her eyes.

**== >**

Jane was awoken by Roxy accidentally elbowing her in the stomach.

"Sorry," Roxy said lazily with her eyes still closed. "This three times spoon combo is not the optimal position for sleeping, I think."

"Three?" Jane sat up and looked around. She was the middle spoon, so doing this made both Roxy and Jake stir sleepily. "Oh no. Where's Dirk? Roxy, Jake, wake up!"

"No, don't wake him up," murmured Roxy, grabbing Jane around the middle. "He's sleeping like an itty-bitty baby, it's so _cute_."

"What the heck, Roxy," said Jane. "Are you actually awake? How do you keep managing to form coherent sentences if you're half-asleep?"

Roxy mumbled something into the pillow that sounded like "It's a gift..." just as Jake finally stopped being an unstoppable wall of snooze.

"What!" He sat up and was breathing heavily. "Oh my god. Oh shit. Oh--oh, Janey. Thank god, it's just you. I thought--"

"Dirk's gone," she told him quickly. "He was here when I fell asleep and now he's gone."

"Oh no. And where's Legule?"

All three at once (even Roxy, who was just sitting up and rubbing her eyes) turned towards the desk, which was on the far end of the room from their cage. Legule was gone.

"Shit," said Roxy. "I hope Dirk didn't do anything stupid."

"What if Legule sold him?" asked Jake.

"It's my fault," said Jane. "I shouldn't have left him to keep watch by himself. I should have made him lie down too. I should have--"

Her pointless self-recriminations were stopped by the sound of the heavy metal door opening, immediately followed by Legule shouting. Dirk was pushed into the room with his hands tied behind his back. His nose was bloody and he was wearing, Jane noticed with queasiness, a metal collar.

"You lousy little nooksniffer," Legule said. "God, they're never going to let me take anyone back there ever again."

"What happened?" Jane asked, looking at Dirk in horror.

"I want all of you assholes to shut up," said Legule. "I mean it. God, what the hell am I gonna do?"

"Legule took me to get registered," Dirk said, looking at Jane. Despite it all, he looked a little amused. "Apparently our species is not in the system. For some strange reason."

"See!" cried Jane. "I keep telling you, we're not from around here, you stupid man. You can't sell us, you might as well let us go."

"First of all," said Legule as he grabbed Dirk by the collar and raised him to his feet, "shut up right the fuck now or I will truss all three of you up like your stupid pointy-glasses friend here."

"Dude," said Dirk as Legule attached the collar to a lead and the lead to a hook on the wall, "leave her alone. It's me you're pissed at."

"And _second of all_ , you miserable motherfuckers," Legule went on, tightening the lead to the point where Dirk began to grimace in discomfort, "this does not mean that I can't sell you freaks. It just means that I'll have to do it under the table, and finding buyers is going to be a pain in the fucking ass. But I will do it just so I can see your _stupid pointy face_ cry some miserable fucking _lizardbeast tears_."

"Jesus, Dirk, what'd you do to this guy?" asked Roxy, laughing a little bit. This struck Jane as somewhat inappropriate, but Dirk was smiling too.

"I tried to escape," he said. "What else?"

"What else?" cried Legule. "I'll tell you what else. He destroyed a priceless genetic scanning machine. I don't know _how_ , but he did."

"Wow, Dirk," said Roxy. "Nice to see your naturally destructive impulses being put to good use, at least."

"Shut the fuck up," Legule said again. "Just...ugh. I gotta make some calls. If I hear one more word out of any of you I will personally skin you all alive. I might not get as much money for 'em, but at least your _tanned hides_ will know how to keep their noiseflaps sealed for _five fucking minutes_."

He slammed the heavy door again and was gone. "Poor guy," said Dirk after him. "He's under some stress right now, isn't he?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Excuse me if I don't feel very sorry for him. Dirk, are you all right?"

Dirk only shook his head, or at least did so as much as he was able while being so harshly constricted by the collar. "We have to get out of here."

"Well, yeah," said Roxy. "That thought did occur to me. But how?"

Dirk could only shake his head again, a sight that, with the collar, made Jane a little sick to her stomach.

**== >**

At the time, Dirk had had not a clue that he had destroyed such a priceless piece of equipment. He had just been seeking to make a distraction, but he was perfectly content taking credit for it later. At least he was, until Legule flogged him for it.

It was pretty bad, pretty bloody, but the worst part was looking up from the floor when it was all over and Legule had shoved him back in the cage. All three of them were looking at him in horror; even Roxy looked pretty freaked, and it was the one thing that made Dirk regret what he had done.

"Come on," said Jane. "We'll clean you up."

"I'm not a baby," he snapped before he could stop himself. "I can take care of myself."

"He tore the fuck out of your back, you dipshit," said Roxy. "How do you expect to clean it up? With your super-extendo roboarms?"

"Don't say that, I'm sure he's built some at one point," said Jane.

He let the three of them lead him to the faucet. He couldn't even walk; he just sort of crawled.

"This is bad," Jane mumbled. "So bad. Oh my god."

"She means the situation," Jake clarified for him. "The situation is bad. Your back really isn't that horrible. I mean, comparatively. I mean, I've seen worse. On me. And other people. In movies. Um."

"See, Jake, this is why I want you to quit with the fucking optimism," said Roxy as she dabbed cautiously at Dirk's back with a wet cloth. "You just really suck at it."

Jake looked embarrassed, but Dirk caught his eye and smiled at him, just a little, even though he privately agreed with Roxy and just wanted him to shut the hell up. Every noise was too loud and every single touch was too rough. Their worried faces swam before his eyes. He ran his hands over his face, pushing his glasses on top of his head, and closed his eyes. He didn't open them until he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Jake.

"Here," he said, holding out one of the cups that an earlier meal had come in. "You should probably drink something, even though it wasn't too much blood loss. I really mean that, I wasn't just saying it to make you feel better or whatever."

Dirk only nodded before grabbing the water from Jake and downing it quickly. He clasped Jake's hand after he did so. Jake's face got red and he smiled, then immediately crawled back over to the faucet to refill the cup.

"There," said Roxy from behind Dirk. "That's the best we can do. You'll have to sleep on the pallet tonight, I think, by your lonesome. We'll stay up and watch over you."

"That's so fucking precious of you, Lalonde," said Dirk.

"You're welcome. If Legule wants something tonight he'll have to deal with one of us instead of your ultra-cool people skills, Strider."

"Today, you mean," said Jake. "People on this planet sleep during the day, remember? Not that it matters, I guess, since there're no windows in here."

"God, Jake, can you not remind me of how quickly I've acclimated myself to this planet's fucked up sleep patterns?"

" _Sorry_."

"Hey, lay off him," said Dirk, managing to sit up on his own, almost. "Doesn't talking about our quasi-vampiric sleep schedules count as the very opposite of optimistic?"

"Oh geez, you're right. Sorry, Jake, why don't you just keep going?"

"You know, we should all try being a little more tolerant of each other," said Jane. She sounded like a mother, not that Dirk had ever had one of those. "I mean, if we're going to get out of here. We need to work together."

"I have perfect faith in our ability to work together," said Roxy. "I just have a less than perfect faith in my ability to live in this fucking cage without going bugfuck _insane_." Her voice broke on the last word, and there were tears in her eyes.

"Roxy!" said Jane. "Roxy, don't--"

Roxy was full-out crying now in quiet, awful sobs. Jane put her hands on Roxy's shoulders and was speaking to her in low words that Dirk couldn't bring himself to listen to. He looked at Roxy with an uncertain feeling, like a mixture of dread and annoyance and fear that was making his limbs heavy, more than even the (supposedly minimal) blood loss. Jake was obviously at a total loss; he made an uncertain movement toward the girls, but then stopped himself. Roxy had leaned into Jane's arms just as Dirk felt another hand nudging him.

It was Jake, holding out another cup of water. "Um," he said, and the sight was so ridiculous that it finally made Dirk move towards the other two.

"Roxy. Rox. Come on." He couldn't lean against the wall because of his back, so he placed himself very carefully next to her and put an arm over Jane's on Roxy's shoulders. "It's OK. Come on." Roxy went to put her other arm around him, remembered about his back, and just sort of patted him on the shoulder. Dirk grinned a little into her hair. "This was your plan all along, wasn't it? Get us all to hug-tackle you? You're so predictable, Lalonde."

"Shut up," she said, hitting him lightly on the chest and lifting her head up to look at Jake, who was staring at them and still holding the cup of water. Roxy let out a pleasant, wet-sounding laugh. "Jesus, Jake, get the fuck over here."

Jake didn't waste time. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. Roxy--"

"Don't," she told him as he blundered into the hug-tackle pile as well. "Please don't worry, Jake. It's OK."

It wasn't, but no one was going to say otherwise in the middle of the hug-tackle pile. Finally Dirk dragged himself back over to the pallet and fell asleep almost at once. He was dead-tired and aching and not willing to argue about anything anymore.

**== >**

He awoke to whispering; Roxy and Jane's, mostly, with Jake saying a few words in his deeper voice. Dirk kept his eyes closed and listened.

"--Make him take me," Roxy was saying. "I'm serious. It's not gonna be fun, but I can handle it better than that poor son of a--"

"It's his choice, Roxy," said Jane. "He wouldn't want us to protect him."

"Then why are you whispering with me about this?"

"Guys," said Jake in the loudest voice yet. "He'll hear you!"

"Oh for Christ's sake," said Dirk, sitting up. "What now?"

The three of them were giving him that horror-stare again. He was getting a little sick of it.

"This seems to be a pattern," said Dirk. "Somebody falls asleep, bad shit goes down. Bad shit involving me, I should add. I vote we just stop sleeping altogether. Fuck this during the day shit, am I right?"

He wasn't, but they never got a chance to tell him because right then the door opened. Legule was back, and for the first time he had a visitor.

"Remarkably gifted," Legule was saying in complimentary terms that Dirk knew could not bode well. "Bright, but not overly bright. Tried to escape, little asshole. I had to stripe him a bit, but he'll behave now. And the three of them come with him, as complements."

"No three others," said the new horned asshole. "Just the one. If he's as good as you say he is he won't need three others."

Legule looked at the potential customer, then at the four of them in the cage, and must have come to a decision. He decided to split the difference, just in case. "Well, the boy's very smart. The boy with the light hair and the girl, too, are both skilled with robotics and mechanics. I've interviewed them and reviewed their sylladices. They're bright, I swear. Either him or her, doesn't matter."

The potential buyer was wearing square shades, whose gaze settled on Dirk and Roxy. "Bring them out."

Legule nodded and grabbed a zapper, cattle prod-type thingy that he had only used once before, when the gang had brought the four of them in. Dirk supposed that Legule only used it when he needed to fake an appearance of cruelty. Legule was a lazy man who would only go the extra length in brutality if there was a reason for it. When he entered the cage he needlessly shoved Jake into the wall and grabbed Dirk and Roxy by the arms.

There were no collars this time at least, but the sensation of being looked over never got much more pleasant. Dirk looked at Jane out of the corner of his eye. She was helping up Jake and gave Dirk a little grimace. Roxy's eyebrows were raised, but her face was otherwise blank.

The new troll inspected them; he just stared and it was very disconcerting, not that anyone's stare wouldn't have been disconcerting in the situation. He was huge, easily taller than both Dirk and Roxy, and totally ripped. He smelled of sweat and one of his horns was chipped off. He grabbed Dirk's chin with one hand and put his other palm on top of Dirk's head.

"He has no horns," said the buyer, his mouth twitching in distaste. "Is he a mutant?" He reached over and felt the top of Roxy's head; she shivered but stayed in place. "Neither does she. Why have they not been culled?"

"They say that their species doesn't have horns," said Legule. "They're what's called humans."

"Never heard of them," said the buyer in a suspicious enough tone that Legule said quickly, "They're fully registered and accounted for. They shouldn't give you any problems, health-wise or behavior-wise."

"And yet you've had to beat this one," said the buyer, lifting up Dirk's stained shirt and inspecting his back. "Fairly recently, by the looks of it."

"No, it was about a week ago. Since then I can safely say that he's learned his lesson." Legule, for whatever his other faults, was a good liar, Dirk had to admit. "Their species doesn't heal very quickly. Another trademark of a lower race, obviously." The speed with with the bullshit flew to Legule's lips was truly impressive, Dirk thought.

"Hmm," said the buyer. "Why does he still have these pointy glasses?"

"For his eyesight," said Legule. "Dark glasses are necessary for his sub-species to see light and process it, so I let him keep them." Dirk, on occasion, could be pretty fluent with bullshit, too. This was the one thing they had going for them; Dirk still had his glasses, and with them the auto-responder. If Dirk could get out and get access to a computer, they could maybe get help.

Meanwhile, the buyer and Legule had started haggling. It was obvious that Legule was trying to get the buyer to take both Dirk and Roxy. The buyer, however, refused to be shifted, and became enraged when Legule attempted to wheedle with him.

"It's obvious to me what's going on here," said the buyer. "You have these four creatures--whatever they are. Frankly I believe you may have made up whatever it was you called their species-- and you are obviously trying to sell all of them as quickly as you can shift them before the drones catch you. This much is obvious."

"Hey, now--"

"I would be foolish to buy all of them on an idiot's promise that there is nothing wrong with them, when anyone could see by their freakish lack of horns and mutant blood that there obviously _is_." Ouch. "But the pickings for workers proficient in metalsmithing are slim enough that I'm willing to take one." He pointed at Dirk and named a price almost comically lower than what Legule had been angling for. Legule took it; he knew when a jig was up.

"Wait," said Roxy as Legule grabbed her around the shoulders and dragged her back to the cage. "Please--" Whatever she was about to say ended in a scream and a clang as Legule slammed the door to the cage behind her.

Dirk was watching the buyer, and the buyer most assuredly was watching him.

"Would you rather I take her?" the buyer asked suddenly. "Instead of you?"

The question surprised him. "No. I...I want her to stay here."

"Why?"

Dirk's mouth got a little dry; for a second he wasn't able to think of an answer. He groped for any answer that was not the truth. "She's...she couldn't. She couldn't do what you need her to do." Whatever _that_ was. The bullshit meter was off the charts here. He was up the bullshit creek without a bullshit paddle.

The buyer looked skeptical, maybe, but it was hard to tell behind the shades. Meanwhile, in the cell, there was an argument going on.

"You can't," Roxy insisted. "You have to leave Dirk alone. You said you would. You _promised_ me, Legule."

"Guess what?" said Legule. "I can promise you something one minute and change my mind the next. It's my fucking prerogative, all right?"

Roxy was about to say something insulting, but before the words came out of her mouth she screamed again. Dirk turned to see what was going on, but before he could really understand what was happening in the cage the buyer had grabbed him by the chin.

"I'm questioning you," said the buyer. "Do not look away."

Dirk bit down a response; he could not think of one that was not, in the circumstances, complete bullshit. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Jane had probably tried to step between Legule and Roxy, and Legule had decided to whip out the zapper again, and basically this was all descending into a complete clusterfuck, not that it had ever had the potential for much else, considering the circumstances.

The buyer, meanwhile, was still inspecting him. "That idiot can do what he likes. It does not concern you anymore."

"I kind of think it does," said Dirk. "All things considered."

The buyer let go of Dirk's head sharply and suddenly was lifting the back of his shirt again and running his fingers over the scabs. He was not gentle; Dirk hissed through his teeth. Jesus, was the asshole _smelling his blood?_

"When did he give you these?" Dirk hesitated. In the cage Legule seemed to have gotten things under control again and had struck someone, but Dirk couldn't tell who from this vantage point. He strained to see out of the corner of his eyes. "I asked you a question." The buyer grabbed him by the chin, hard. It hurt, and Dirk suspected the guy wasn't even trying very hard. "You will not look at them. You will answer me."

This was pretty bad. This was a fryer and that fucking cage had been the frying pan, but he had been too cocksure to realize that, hadn't he? Before he could think of anything else, the truth was coming out of his mouth. "Just yesterday."

"Why did you get them?"

Dirk stared. He could hear Jane speaking and somebody crying, so it was with a purposeful gritting of his teeth that he said, "I tried to escape. Legule doesn't lie about everything, you know."

"How?"

"I broke a piece of scanning equipment. I don't know what it's called. I really am a human, and I really am not from around here." He was stalling for time; he did not to leave here with this strange man before he knew that the three of them in the cage were all right. "So when it didn't recognize my weird mutant blood and the tech went to check in the other room, I rigged it to explode."

"How?"

Dirk shrugged. "Just reversed the polarity. Turned on the flux capacitors. You know, your average science-y shit." There was a pause that for once was not tense and more just confused. "Oh for--I just overloaded the machine. Just turned the juice up when the tech's back was turned. Simplest thing in the world. That's it, I swear."

The buyer nodded. "You'll do, I suppose. Legule. Get him ready. I want to leave in the next ten minutes. Sometime this sweep, please."

Legule hopped to it; once he got his money he would be happy to see the back of Dirk. "Wait," said Dirk as Legule put the collar back on him. "Please, I just want to say goodbye. I want to see that you didn't kill them."

Legule didn't bother to even acknowledge him, so Dirk turned to the buyer. "Please. I'll do what you need me to do. I just need to--"

The buyer--the owner, now--gave him another awful stare, but he nodded and pushed Dirk roughly back towards the cage.

Dirk sank down to the floor, where Roxy was huddled up against the bars. "Dirk," she said. "Dirk, you--"

"Chill," he said. "It's gonna be all right, OK?"

He said that, despite several indications to the contrary. Roxy was huddled up on one side the cage, Jane was on the other (her eyes were open and she nodded at him weakly, at least) and Jake was on his hands and knees, breathing heavily with blood dripping out of his mouth. "Just don't get yourselves killed. Don't worry about me." Then he said, lower still: "I can find you guys again. I've got AR."

" _What_? Oh. Ohhhhh." Her eyes widened. "Fuck yes. I didn't even think of that. Shit. Shit shit shit, you are something, Dirk. Why didn't you say anything?" She smiled widely and genuinely for the first time in many days; it was a nice thing to see again, Dirk could admit.

"Dirk?" It was Jane. Her voice was still hoarse, but she managed to scoot her way across the floor to them. "What are you two talking about?" Jake also was dragging his sorry carcass over to their communal pity-a-thon.

"Never mind," said Roxy. "I'll tell you later. _Shiiiiit_. Oh Dirk."

Jane grabbed his shoulder through the bars. "You don't get yourself killed either, all right?"

"Sound advice."

"She's right," said Jake, looking up finally and giving Dirk a pained smile even with his bloody, split lip. "If you die, I'm gonna be really pissed off at you, Strider."

Legule grabbed him by the hair before he could answer. "Let's go. You can cry about them later." He reattached the lead to Dirk's collar. "All three of you better shut the fuck up. I mean it. I am done with your crap, this is the last time I'm gonna say this."

"I somehow doubt that," said Roxy, but Legule had already walked away. Dirk sighed involuntarily as the buyer--the new owner-- grabbed the lead from Legule and led Dirk out of the room.


	2. Heart

The house he was brought to was cavernous and spooky, littered with robo-carcasses, with weird horse paintings on the walls and an actual weird horse butler guy in the flesh, who seemed to be the majordomo of the place. All in all, it was like some sort of nightmare Freudian hellscape out of the darkest reaches of Dirk's subconscious. 

Which actually wasn't much of a problem; that was the sort of thing that Dirk liked. Plus, it made him glad that he had been the one Equius (for that was his name) had chosen; Dirk, out of all his friends, was probably the best-equipped to deal with this kind of situation. Jake would possibly just get freaked (no matter how blue the musclebeast horsemen were), Jane would probably squint and criticize the lousy sense of perspective and anatomy utilized by the artists, and Roxy would simply not be able to keep a straight face, all of which were reactions that would not sit well with the paintings' owner. He took the portraits pretty seriously, and was not very tolerant.

All in all, the guy was a bit of a mess, and ridiculously stubborn-minded. He gave Dirk a room somewhere deep within the house, with an attached workshop for working on cybernetics. When Dirk requested a room with a window, where he could see the daylight, his owner not only scoffed at the idea, but refused to entertain the notion.

"Why would you wish to see the sunlight?" asked Equius. "How could that possibly be beneficial for you?"

Dirk stared. "Well, I don't know. It just is. My species likes the sunlight, usually, I guess. If we don't get enough sunlight we can get health problems and depression and shit, dude."

He hadn't really expected this tactic to convince Equius, and it didn't. In fact, it pissed the guy off further. "You are not to swear in my presence. And you will address me by my proper title."

"Which was what again?"

"Master." Equius only gave him a stony stare, but Dirk decided not to push the issue regardless.

"Sure." At that early point he had not yet been willing to push the boundaries much.

He did get the new room, eventually. He wore Equius down before long. (Dirk always thought of him as "the master" because it sounded funny in his head, and because thinking of him by a name seemed even weirder.) Wearing him down wasn't hard to do; he wasn't as forceful as he liked to think he was, which was in fact a problem because occasionally he would over-compensate with extravagant acts of punishment. 

That wasn't until later, though. At first Dirk was careful to bring nothing on himself.

Even the new room, and the alien technology and cybernetics he had to work with, and Equius' strange catwife, could not take Dirk's mind off of the three of them back in Legule's cage. He thought of them every hour of every day, or night, or whenever Equius let him sleep. It was because the image of their faces kept recurring to him--Roxy curled up in a ball against the bars of the cage, Jane's pained grin, Jake's bloody smile-- that the idea of escape encompassed his mind so totally.

But at first, he was very cautious. He didn't even activate the AR in his glasses for that first week. He was getting used to his surroundings, and his somewhat menial robot-repair duties.

His first great act of defiance didn't come until after Equius moved him to the new room, which was colder and in a less-used part of the house. Dirk started to adjust more to the hours he was used to; the Alternian sun didn't bother him. He liked working during the day better than at night, so he started staying in the workshop later and sleeping during the night.

"This is unacceptable," said Equius. 

"What is, sir?" asked Dirk from underneath a huge chassis.

"Your sleep habits."

"They are what they are. Sir."

"It is unacceptable. You'll stop now."

"Stop sleeping? You got it, boss. Get me some coffee, I'm gonna pull a fucking all-dayer."

"This insubordination is unacceptable. You will stop."

"Will I?" He was concentrating on his work and wasn't actually listening very hard. "Good for me. Hand me the blowtorch?"

Equius did not hand him anything. He was standing there, looking nervous. "I command you."

"You command me to what?" snapped Dirk. He hadn't actually wanted to get into this fight today; he had been pushing his limits a little bit for the past few days, but this was something different. He wanted to see what would happen, all of a sudden. "To sleep during the day? So you can lock me into my room while you go beddy-bye? Fine. Let me take my work to fucking bed with me, Einstein. Lock me in my room with it so you don't have to worry, then let me out at night and I will snooze on the tables here in the workshop. Don't think that I won't."

Equius's face tensed up. Remarkably, he was sweating.

"You will do what I say," he said.

"Sure. As soon as what you say is what I want to hear," said Dirk. 

"Unacceptable. Insufferable insolence." Instead of saying anything else, however, Equius grabbed one of Dirk's recently repaired robocarcasses and ran from the room, slamming the door to the lab and locking it behind him.

Dirk watched him go in shock; he was sweating a little bit himself. He had expected Equius to react, to hit him or slap him. But he hadn't. Instead he had fled from the room like an angry child.

Interesting. Dirk looked around. Since he seemed to have some alone time ahead of him, and since he wasn't getting out of the workshop until Equius let him out again, he decided to talk to the AR. He tapped the touchscreen of the glasses and activated the auto-responder program.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

TT: I suppose you saw all that.  
TT: You're fucking right I did.  
TT: What the hell was that?  
TT: Your guess is as good as mine.  
TT: Literally.  
TT: Yeah, I was just about to say that.  
TT: Ell oh fucking ell.  
TT: Seriously, though.  
TT: Yeah, I don't know. I think he's nuts. What the hell does he want?  
TT: You.  
TT: You know, by flattering me you're only obliquely flattering yourself, so really, by saying that you're just embarrassing everyone here.  
TT: But me especially. So shut up.  
TT: I'm not kidding.  
TT: You forget that I can observe him even when you're not looking at him, and when he thinks you're not looking at him.  
TT: Dude, come on. He's a fucking alien. A whole other fucking species.  
TT: Yeah, but this guy is not the most difficult nut to crack.  
TT: It's pretty obvious that he's attracted to you.  
TT: Well fuck.  
TT: Yeah, he's got it for you pretty bad, and it's not good. Look, just upload me to that little tablet on the desk there.  
TT: That seems like a great way to get you caught and deprogrammed and to get my ass into some deep trouble.  
TT: Bullshit. You know that I know that I can remain hidden on that silly troll-version of an iPad.  
TT: I know that you know that I know.  
TT: Yeah, OK. Do we have to do this right now?  
TT: Nope. Just upload me into that cute little tablet before he comes back.  
TT: OK, fine.  
TT: Great. Now I can get this fun investigation party started.  
TT: But now you need to get more permanent access to a computer that's not in your fucking glasses. You need this computer.  
TT: What?  
TT: Get him to let you take this tablet to your room with you.  
TT: He's not going to let me do that.  
TT: He will.  
TT: Just trust me. He will. You only have to talk him into it.  
TT: I am not flirting with my sweaty asshole slave master just so you can dig up troll porn on the troll internet.  
TT: Come on, dude. I'll find out where Jane and Jake and Roxy are. We'll escape faster this way. You don't have to worry about being sneaky when you gather up information, since I can do that for you.  
TT: Meanwhile I get all the shitty jobs.  
TT: Shitty jobs being the romancing the sweaty asshole.  
TT: Fuck yeah. Being the meatsack isn't all funtimes, you know.  
TT: I'd have thought you'd have realized that by this point in your life, Dirk.  
TT: Whatever, dude.  
TT: OK, fine.  
TT: Just don't fuck this up, OK?  
TT: You have no reason to worry.  
TT: That's a fucking lie and you know it.  
TT: Yeah. I know.  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: So I'm going to upload your program and get back to work now. Talk to you in a bit. I guess.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

He thought of pocketing the tablet, but that seemed like an easy way to get caught. The AR was probably right. In theory, anyway, it should not be hard to get Equius to let him take the tablet. It would probably mean giving in on the night vs. day sleep issue, but Dirk figured this was more important. 

It was kind of weird, the relief he felt in talking to anyone friendly again, even when that person was the AR, whose primary reason for existence was to gently troll him. Part of Dirk was always expecting to be had when he talked to the AR, so it was weird, this feeling of honestly depending on him. He supposed it was reassuring, knowing that he literally had his own back in this case. It also was kind of terrifying, if he was being honest.

He had just gotten back to work and was mostly engrossed in what he was doing when Equius returned, unlocking the door and throwing it open with a clang. Dirk looked up and saw that in his arms he was carrying bits and pieces of the android he'd taken with him. He didn't say anything to Dirk as he heaped the robobits into the junk pile in the corner.

"What'd you _do_ to it? Beat it with a lead pipe?" asked Dirk before he remembered that that wasn't how this conversation was supposed to go. Thankfully, Equius ignored the question, so Dirk turned away from what he had been working on and said, "Look, about the sleeping thing. I can adjust, sleep during the day like all the normal trolls do. I was just being an ass. I'm sorry."

Equius didn't look at him. He said in a toneless voice, "It doesn't matter. You may sleep whenever you choose for the next few nights. I am going out of town and won't need you in the workshop."

"Oh. You don't need me to get any work done while you're away?"

"You will not be allowed in the workshop while I am gone. This room will be locked the whole time and Aurthour will look after you."

Great, he was looking forward to _that_. "Where are you going?"

"I have business in the city."

"Right. I...guess that makes sense. Locking up, I mean."

Equius finally looked at him. "It's a security issue. Outside security, that is. Less to do with you. I don't suppose you have anywhere to escape to, even if you could."

"That's definitely true," said Dirk, inwardly grimacing. "Who do you think is going to break in?"

"I've had trouble with my neighbor in the past. But it's no concern of yours."

"Sure," he said. "You think I could take some of the robot parts with me? Into my room or something? I'm still pretty unfamiliar with this code you use for them. The language is a bit weirder than what I'm used to."

"Yes, fine," said Equius, turning back to the robopile. "Take what you need."

"Thanks, dude," said Dirk. The forbidden form of address was out of his mouth before he had really thought much about it, but Equius did not turn around. He was still sweating, Dirk noticed. 

As he gathered up a few bits of hardware and, most importantly, the tablet, Dirk wondered at what the AR had said, about Equius having some sort of weird alien boner for him. He thought that maybe the little bastard of an AI really had been trolling him, unless the AR knew a lot more about how trolls got weird alien boners than Dirk did, which he seriously hoped was not the case. What probably _was_ the case was that the AR had made up the weird alien boner angle to give Dirk more confidence about making the request that was necessary for whatever the AR's stupid inscrutable plans were.

Except that didn't really make any sense at all either, and was not at all something that the AR would do. Dirk was making up shit to tell himself so he would feel better about a freaky situation. Wasn't that what he had built a stupid self-aggrandizing mental clone of himself for? 

Actually, he no longer remembered why he had built a self-aggrandizing mental clone of himself. Looking back on it, he seemed to have thought of it while coming off a week-long Yoohoo bender, and the 13 year-old psyche he had had at the time had thought it was a great idea and ran with it. He seriously regretted that decision when he looked down at the tablet and saw a new chat window open.

TT: Just keep calm, dude. I've got this all under control.

The stupid, cocky bastard. Thankfully the shock at seeing this utterly unnecessary line of text was not writ too large on his face, and he managed to take the tablet, close the chat window, and show the things he was taking to Equius, who looked at them barely at all and nodded.

When Dirk was back in his room, he made a pile of the robobits next to the pile of old clothes that he slept on; nobody on this planet seemed to know what a bed was. He sat down on its softness, which was nothing like the comforting embrace of his smuppet/hat pile back home, and took out the tablet.

TT: Done.  
TT: Nice work.  
TT: Have you found them yet?  
TT: Nope. Give it time.  
TT: Well hurry it up. Whatever happened to solving these infinitesimal problems at the dizzying speed of information?  
TT: The Alternian black market doesn't actually have a website, you know.  
TT: It's not like I can comb their FAQs and find out where the three of them got sent off to.  
TT: What do you mean, black market.  
TT: Where else is Legule going to sell his strange pink and brown hornless slaves? Ain't nowhere else to go but underground, bro.  
TT: If you say so.  
TT: Jesus I am tired.  
TT: So go to bed. Don't worry your excellently-coiffed head over it.  
TT: If you keep telling me not to worry my head I'm seriously going to explode with bullshit what-if scenarios and panicked escape plans, so just stop reassuring me.  
TT: You're tired.  
TT: Night, bro.  
TT: Day. Whatever.  
TT: Bye.

Dirk curled up on the pile and thought about Jake or Roxy or Jane still sleeping on that lumpy, smelly pallet Legule had left in the cage. Maybe one of them had been sold and right now was curling up on a similarly droopy pile of soft crap, without even an annoying mental clone of themselves to keep them company.

Before Dirk could fall asleep, he heard a minute blip from the tablet.

TT: Oh. But I did talk to Equius' weird catwife.  
TT: Excuse me?  
TT: You'll see.  
TT: What the actual fuck are you on about?  
TT: Her name's Nepeta. She's a kooky cat lady who is also your new owner's moirail.  
TT: Sorry, "meowrail."  
TT: What the fuck is that?  
TT: Moirallegiance, as far as I can tell from the many porn sites I have thus far scanned with my lightning-fast intellect, is a type of troll relationship centered around intense feelings of platonic companionship and protectiveness.  
TT: O...K?  
TT: And this Nepeta is Equius'. So it's probably in your best interests to be in her good graces, isn't it?  
TT: When you're less brain-dead and encumbered by the exhaustion so inherent in humans' fleshy meat torsos, I will explain to you what the quadrants are and how they relate to troll romance.  
TT: That conversation sounds like it's gonna be stellar, can't wait.  
TT: Just remember, to her your roleplaying name is Horsebot 3000.  
TT: My god, you are fucking nuts.  
TT: Peace out, dude.

The AR was taking care of things, but he couldn't be there for Dirk all the time. There were certain experiences Dirk could not explain to him because the AR would not understand them. One example of this, which Dirk found himself reliving as he tried to fall asleep when the sun was coming up, was the first day Dirk had been brought to the hive.

That day had not gotten off to a good start. Equius had untied him and removed the collar, along with Dirk's shirt. "Hold still."

"What are you--"

"Hold still. This is disinfectant. I should not need to restrain you to treat your injuries, I hope."

"I certainly hope not," said Dirk, bracing himself against a table. The disinfectant stung, and so did Equius's bruising touch. Dirk hissed through his teeth; the guy, he had already decided, was kind of an asshole.

"Ow," said Dirk in a dull tone. "You're not much of a medic, are you?"

Equius was putting a bandage over the last cut. "They'll heal. That's the important part."

"Yeah." He was staying where he was, because Equius had not yet moved either. Dirk had already decided that a crucial element of the master/slave relationship was never being the one to blink first.

Equius' hands were still warm and heavy on Dirk's back as he asked haltingly, "You are not otherwise hurt?"

"No. I'm fine." _So let go_ , was the unspoken comment there, but Dirk just looked at Equius square in the shades until the man's hands fell away. The guy looked away very quickly, as if ashamed, which under normal circumstances might have made Dirk laugh. Instead he had shrugged quickly and put his shirt back on.

So, maybe the AR was somewhat correct, there was some odd tension there. Sort of heated, cramped tension that Dirk didn't like. Not that Dirk actually was frightened of the guy; not exactly. Still, there was the fact that every time Dirk mouthed off to him, Equius wouldn't lash out at him. Usually he just grabbed a robot and went to beat the shit out of it, which as a coping strategy was actually something Dirk could relate to.

Still, there was discomfort, and a lot of uncomfortable, sweaty pauses here. Dirk thought again of Equius patching up his wounds, apparently trying not to hurt him and doing it anyway because he couldn't help himself.

**== >**

A few days after first hooking up the AR to the Troll Wide Web, Dirk spoke to Nepeta for the first time. Nepeta thought she was speaking to Dirk for the fourth or fifth time; she and the AR had really hit off, and the AR, for obvious reasons, had chosen not to reveal that his consciousness was in fact a separate entity from Dirk's.

arsenicCatnip [AC] began trolling timaeusTestified [TT]

AC: :33 < *ac brings you some oats and some hay and um I guess horse-y things?*  
AC: :33 < *oops i mean, she guesses! and then she says hello!!!*  
TT: Horsebot 3000 whinnies in greeting.  
TT: Stoically.  
AC: :33 < h33 h33. i think its so cool that you roleplay in your culture too!  
TT: Cool isn't the word I would use to describe it.  
TT: But whatever floats your boat.  
AC: :33 < yessssss.  
AC: :33 < ok so i hope everything is going alright over there  
TT: As well as can be expected?  
AC: :33 < ok. because i have not talked to equius much about it  
AC: :33 < but he has been sort of cryptic about everything which is not a big surprise  
AC: :33 < and maybe you and him have talked about this and i am just being overly nosy and a stereotypically officious moirail  
TT: You mean meowrail.  
AC: :33 < ahahahaha yes of course thats what i mean  
AC: :33 < but has he talked to you about where you're going  
TT: Where I'm going?  
TT: No, I guess he hasn't. As far as I can tell I am stuck here. Pretty much stuck in this house in a sense that borders on the spectacular.  
AC: :33 < whats a house  
TT: Sorry, I mean hive.  
AC: :33 < hmm ok so i guess he has definitely been putting this off then!  
AC: :33 < i know youre not of our species so you wouldnt be expected to know this maybe  
AC: :33 < but when trolls come of age which for equius and me is in about half a sweep we are given an assignment off planet  
AC: :33 < usually this would mean that any servants owned by that person would be compensated and freed!  
TT: You're shitting me.  
AC: :33 < no its true!  
TT: How long is a sweep?  
AC: :33 < um

So there was that. After finding out that half a sweep meant a little more than a whole year, of course, Dirk still wasn't happy, but at least he had Nepeta's sort of promise that he might, possibly, be set free. Maybe.

Actually, that was the shittiest fucking deal he had ever heard and it still didn't solve the problem of where the fuck Jane, Jake, and Roxy were, which was a problem the AR still had not managed to solve.

TT: I'm going to ask him just what the fuck he plans to do with me in a year or whenever the fuck I'm supposed to be getting out of here.  
TT: If he even plans to let me out of here. Not to be too pushy since I obviously don't have a lot of leverage in the situation, but you'd think this would be something he could fucking let me in on, if I'm going to be living in his house and working on his fucking robots and drinking his gross milk.  
TT: Did you drink that milk? I told you not to drink that milk, you don't know where it comes from.  
TT: (I know. I know, and it's terrible.)  
TT: Man, who cares? Who even cares what he fucking plans to do with me in a year, or two years? We're not going to fucking be here, are we?  
TT: Hopefully not, if we pull this escape off.  
TT: Sure. So what have you found out? Where are Jake and Roxy and Jane?  
TT: As far as I can tell, Legule has gone on the move. He's no longer based in the hive where he sold you from, but we knew that.  
TT: Totally.  
TT: Obviously the important part here is the plan you've got going on in meatspace. How's the escape route coming?  
TT: It's fine. Don't worry about it.  
TT: My confidence is soaring.

Dirk had been closely observing his master's habits. It had started when Dirk had offered to spar with him every day.

"I might hurt you," said Equius.

Dirk shrugged. "That which does not kill me, I guess. Come on. I could use the practice."

"You're a good worker. I'll consider it."

Dirk was a good worker; he was a great worker, and he got better every day. Equius, he thought, really did not suspect that Dirk wanted to escape. Part of Dirk, a quiet and mostly ignorable part of him, sort of felt bad about pulling the wool over his eyes. Except feeling guilt would imply that Dirk had feelings for him, or was even starting to like him, which was not really the case. It was weird, and it only got weirder when he and Equius started sparring together.

Jake was an unapologetic aficionado of scrums, fisticuffs, and brawls. Dirk was ambivalent; wrestling as a whole seemed inelegant to him, sort of graceless and brutish. Which was perhaps the point of fighting, but still. Dirk had never excelled at it, and he suspected he would have almost no advantage at all compared to Equius, who would win their every bout.

Dirk's back was still hurting him pretty badly; there was this itching, stretching feeling that he got every morning or every dusk, whenever it was he woke up.

Still, as the clear idea of an escape started forming itself in Dirk's mind, he started to mind the pain less. Actually, he started ignoring his back completely. After Equius returned from his mysterious trip to the city, Dirk started sparring with him every day.

TT: That seems like such a bad idea, in so many ways.  
TT: Why?  
TT: He's a lot stronger than you are. He wrestles with robots pretty much daily, and he beats the living robocrap out of them.  
TT: Hey, so do I.  
TT: I hardly think giving Squarewave a dousing of Faygo a few times a week makes you some sort of master of the robodojo.  
TT: Robodojo? Really?  
TT: Why would you think this is a good idea?  
TT: Why don't you tell me?  
TT: It seems you're trying to be cagey with me. Fine. I'll speculate wildly.  
TT: Maybe you see it as a way to get closer to him, to ingratiate yourself, figure out how he ticks. If he does tick. Maybe you have some weird masochistic urge and want to get served like a dude on manhorsebutler island. Maybe you're having some sort of incredibly ill-advised attraction to him.  
TT: There are a lot of options here.  
TT: Maybe.  
TT: Maybe is a dumb word.  
TT: Maybe just cool your jets, all right?  
TT: Jets are the least of the things which have to be cooled here, I'm afraid.  
TT: All right, we're done here. Talk to you later, dude. Let me know if you find out anything.  
TT: Check.  
TT: Talk to you later, assuming troll Hulk doesn't rip out your spine and wear it like a feather boa before he tries to romance your poor, bereft corpse.  
TT: Oh just calm the fuck down, all right? I can't tell if you're dreading this or just really excited by it.  
TT: Back atcha, bro.

The fatal spine-wearing failed to happen, but the first bout with Equius was no cakewalk either. 

It started after Equius had pinned him, and then tried to start a conversation. "Your blood," he said. Not an ideal way to start a conversation in that less than ideal position.

Dirk rolled over to his side and breathed in deeply. "What?"

"I said your blood's a different color. Than your eyes."

Their faces were quite close, and Dirk's shades had been knocked off somehow during the bout. Equius was obviously just noticing his eye color for the first time. "And?" said Dirk, who couldn't think of anything else to say and suddenly didn't want to move anymore.

Equius's hands were at Dirk's sides. They tightened suddenly, stretching the material of Dirk's shirt taut. Dirk tensed, but before he could make a move or say a word Equius let him go and stood up. "It's just strange. But that's your species, I suppose. You don't even have a hemospectrum, do you?"

Dirk sat up and rubbed his head. "No."

"You don't even know what that is, I suppose."

"No, I do. I've been here for awhile now. Don't you think I would have figured some of these things out by now? On my own?" He paused and considered the stare he was getting. Maybe it was the pain in his back or the annoying flutter he'd felt in his chest, or the way he had just been manhandled, or how right the AR had been about what a bad idea this was, but something, at any rate, made Dirk say, "And I've asked Nepeta about it. She's told me plenty."

Equius nodded; it was the first time Dirk had brought up talking to her. He seemed to twitch as he said, "Did she?"

"She says that it's all a lot of bullcrap. Horse hockey, as we say where I come from." He paused and Equius looked down at him with a quizzical, stony look. "I"m just kidding, nobody actually says horse hockey. But what Nepeta says is that the hemospectrum is an outdated system that exploits people and needs to be taken out back and shot. My words, not hers. I'm paraphrasing."

Equius shrugged. "I suppose that point of view is one frequently adopted by slaves and those in the lower castes, yes. But the hemospectrum exists for a reason, to maintain balance and keep certain urges in check."

"What kind of urges?"

"Violent ones."

"Oh. That's what the robots are for, right?" Equius, incredibly, seemed to shrink at that. "And slaves, I guess. Right?"

"I won't discuss it."

"Why not?"

"It doesn't concern the likes of you."

"Doesn't it? I thought all this hemospectrum junk was immensely important and probably somehow relevant in my upcoming life of robodrudgery."

Equius clenched his fists. "You're being intransigent. Deliberately rude. You'll stop."

Dirk stood up finally and stood very close to Equius, close enough to almost feel him shaking. "Not to sound childish but...make me."

It was perhaps not the smoothest bit of manipulating Dirk had ever done, but it got the job done and then some. Equius's hands were shaking and he was sweating. _Glistening_ , thought Dirk needlessly, even more than he had been perspiring during the heat of their fight. Under normal circumstances it might have been off-putting. Under normal circumstances, of course, Dirk wouldn't have wrestled with musclebound alien with control issues so huge they were visible from space, and Dirk (probably) wouldn't have goaded said freaky alien into pinning him to the ground again, this time much more forcefully and less professionally than before. Dirk grunted in pain as he took all of his weight and most of Equius' on his back, and, instead of drawing back, that was what made Equius grab him by the shirtfront and kiss him. On the face. With tongue.

Part of him cringed, just a bit, because he _knew_ the AR was watching, or processing audiovisual input of all this or whatever bullshit Dirk had programmed him to receive, and part of him reveled in it because he knew the AR was watching and he sort of wanted to stick it to him, really let him get a load of what Dirk had brought about here in the interests of their escape attempt, and also for a few less pure interests of his own.

Equius pulled away but did not let go of Dirk's shirt. "I'm sorry. I got away from myself there."

"Sure," said Dirk, keeping a straight face despite himself. "I suppose I had it coming to me."

"Did you?" asked Equius dubiously.

"Mhmm. Probably you should make an example of me. Really let me have it."

"Um."

"What are you waiting for? Let me have it, dude." He paused uncertainly but then suddenly had the motherfucking greatest of all motherfucking great ideas. "Let me have it, master."

That, in fact, did do the trick perfectly. Equius hauled him to his feet by his shirtfront and kissed him, not caring this time when his teeth blundered against Dirk's, not caring how Dirk's feet stumbled as he hauled him out of the room to the washroom with the bathtub next door.

There was a thrill in his stomach and a tightening all over his skin that somehow was not made worse by the not infrequent stings of pain from his back. Dirk was pulling off his own shirt as the hot water from overhead hit him, and he was getting rid of his half damp pants now as Equius was pulling him down into the tub with him.

With all his forethought and careful manipulation of Equius' fragile alien psyche, Dirk hadn't actually given a lot of thought to the alien sex question, or rather he had repressed most of the alien sex questions because he didn't think he could handle the AR's smug responses. In the tub, with the warm water running and Equius pulling him close like he was holding onto a goddamn life preserver, it didn't really matter. There was enough friction and heat from the water and the rough caress of Equius' fingerless gloves, which he had neglected to take off with the rest of his clothes. Dirk made a noise before he could stop himself. 

"Was that," said Equius with an uncertain shudder, "was that--"

"That's good," breathed Dirk. "Keep doing that." Equius did and Dirk made another noise. "Shit."

"Is that bad?" asked Equius with a nervous ring in his voice.

"No, no," breathed Dirk. "That's good. That means I'm coming. That's so good." Even on his newly shaky legs he was able to pull himself up a bit so he could straddle Equius and place one knee over the troll's crotch. He couldn't make things out very well with his newly blissed-out awareness, but as he moved his hand down there he could feel wiry but soft hair, just like there would be on a human, and long, hard, likely-feeling object, not that Dirk was in any condition to write a compare and contrast essay at this point. "Shit, we didn't think this out very well, did we?" Equius shuddered, either in response to his words or to the rhythm of Dirk's hand and the weight of his knee. "Next time, though. Next time I want you to ride me. I want you to ride me just like you'd do one of your fucking hoofbeasts. You got that?" 

Equius shuddered more than ever and was gone; out of the corner of his eye Dirk could see copious amounts of a blue-colored substance swirling down the drain with all the water. He straightened his leg out and collapsed on top of Equius, who had let out a huge breath and was now patting Dirk's back uncertainly, like he wanted to calm him or pet him but didn't quite know how.

The awkward post-coital nonsense was just beginning when, miracle of miracles, Equius was contacted via Trollian that somehow or other was installed on his glasses.

"Yes," said Equius, leaning over and grabbing where his glasses had landed on the floor. "Yes, I should reply to that. Yes. It's...it's Nepeta. Oh. Oh dear."

"Tell her I said hi," said Dirk, leaning back into the water and rinsing his hair, but Equius had already fled the bathroom for less awkward pastures, which was perhaps a loaded choice of words but Dirk didn't really care at that point.

He and Equius avoided each other all day, Equius because of soul-crushing embarrassment and Dirk because of a minor hint of embarrassment and also because he wanted to take a step back and assess the situation and possibly talk to/gloat with the AR.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering timaeusTestified [AR]

TT: Well.  
TT: So, I assume after all that you somehow have the key to your prison secreted up your garter belt somewhere.  
TT: You got me. It is stashed away deep in some feminine undergarment, so cleverly ensconced in its many frills and undulations that we may never see it again.  
TT: Shit, some fucking scheme that was!  
TT: Who's been planning this crap?  
TT: So, you lost your virginity to the guy who legally owns your ass.  
TT: How does it feel?  
TT: Dude, didn't we have a deal?  
TT: Didn't I say that I wouldn't rub your lack of corporeal form and biological processes in your face if you would not stick your (non-existent, by the way) fucking nose up in my shit?  
TT: Wasn't that an agreement that we made, between bros and mental clones?  
TT: I somehow think manipulating and romancing that broken-horned heap of issues who, I should mention, has total control over your well-being and very life thanks to the fucked up caste system of this planet on which we've found ourselves, is kind of different as far as sexual experiences go as compared to, for instance, getting a handjob from English or letting Roxy drunkenly show you her boobs.  
TT: Oh, for those happier times.  
TT: Seriously, dude.  
TT: Don't "dude" me. You know I'm just looking out for your best interests.  
TT: Am I kind of intrigued by your weird musclebeast-loving paramour? Yeah, sure. But this stupid fling of yours is not as practical or as under your control as you think it is.  
TT: What do you mean?  
TT: Look, you know what he was saying, or trying and failing to say, about highblood "urges" and violence or whatever?  
TT: Yeah. Sounds like a load of bullshit to me.  
TT: It probably is, but that doesn't mean it's not a thing that's not true or anything.  
TT: What?  
TT: I mean that he believes in it, anyway, and that alone means it is something that could fuck your day up.  
TT: That could fuck *our* day up. And by "our" I do mean yours, mine, Roxy, Jane and Jake's.  
TT: I think you're full of it, dude.  
TT: Not so. Look, he's obviously all kinds of red for you, and you're mostly black and just sort of stringing him along until I can get you out of this shithole.  
TT: OK, first of all: it is my ass sort of on the line here, both literally and figuratively, so I think it is *me* getting me out of this shithole.  
TT: And second of all, what the fucking hell are you on about? Red for me?  
TT: Jesus, good work Mr. Ace Cultural Anthropologist. Are you seriously telling me that you still don't get this troll hatesex shit yet? You know what I mean by him being red as fucking cheeks for you, and you don't really give a damn either way.  
TT: Well, of course I don't. But I think you're overstating his feelings for me. They're not red, or black, they're just...feelings.  
TT: Feelings which he cannot properly articulate and has to take into the shower.  
TT: Oh, my mistake. You're right, once he finds out you're playing him for a sucker he's going to take it all hunky dory and not blow a fucking gasket on your skinny ass.  
TT: He is going to blow a fucking gasket whatever happens. I'm getting out of here without his aristocratic, highblood permission. There is no other way this can go down without some tears, even if I wasn't fucking him on the side, but when he flips out I will hopefully be on a completely different troll continent and thus can give even less of a fuck than I would give in normal circumstances.  
TT: Also, you must realize that you're not going to convince me of anything arguing like this.  
TT: Yeah, I know. I'm just securing my bases, readying myself to say I told you so when it becomes necessary.  
TT: Which it will.  
TT: God, you are such a prick sometimes.  
TT: Back atcha, bro.

**== >**

arsenicCatnip [AC] began trolling timaeusTestified [TT]

AC: :33 < hello!  
TT: Hey.  
AC: :33 < just checking in! i hope everything is ok  
TT: Well, it is and it isn't.  
TT: Look, Nepeta, I haven't talked to Equius about this much but I'm kind of going stir-crazy over here. I haven't left this house in weeks.  
TT: Or, I guess, this hive. Whatever. Could you talk to him about it maybe? We just got into an argument about something over here and I don't want to bring up something like this again so soon.  
AC: :33 < oh, i hope the argument wasnt too awful  
AC: :33 < he can be such a nasty crank sometimes!  
TT: No, it was fine. In the end, I mean. We sort of made up.  
TT: Made up in a big way. It's just I don't want to mess things up here.  
AC: :33 < oh good :DD  
AC: :33 < well of course i can talk to him for you, thats what im here for! and i dont see why you shouldnt go on a night trip to the city or something with him. i know that he trusts you!  
TT: Does he?  
AC: :33 < yessss :33 trust is very impurrtant in a relationship  
TT: Yes. Even if it's a relationship where you have been brought to his planet against your will and now are being kept prisoner in his sinister cavernous hive and while toiling day and night, constructing the perfect robohorse in his roboworkshop, which is not a thing I am actually doing so never mind.  
AC: :33 < it makes me sad that that happened to you! :((  
TT: The enslavement thing? Yeah, it's a tough break.  
AC: :33 < have you given any more thought to where you want to go once he frees you? you want to return to your own planet right?  
TT: That might not be possible. Plus I would need to find my friends first. And that's not for another like ten years, right?  
AC: :33 < well not that long :((  
TT: Still. By then it will probably be too late.  
TT: What I'm trying to say is, I need your help, Nepeta. I need to find them and I need to escape. Soon. It's important.  
AC: :33 < i see  
TT: Can you talk him into that?  
AC: :33 < well...  
TT: I bet you can.  
AC: :33 < yes i can certainly but it will take time.  
TT: As long as it's less than the twelve years of indentured servitude I'm scheduled for up in here, I'll take it.  
AC: :33 < ok but dirk you cant do anything rash  
TT: Like what?  
AC: :33 < like just leave! i wish it was that simple but its not and he would get so mad!  
AC: :33 < so so mad and i would not be there to deal with him!  
TT: I can handle him if he gets mad.  
AC: :33 < no you cant! you are not his moirail. its different, i dont think your species would understand.  
TT: K. You know, I don't really understand why you put up with him and his fits.  
TT: I mean, I put up with them, but that's because I don't really have a choice. But you don't have to.  
AC: :33 < because im his moirail silly! its my job :33  
TT: I guess that makes sense. Except how it doesn't make sense at all.  
AC: :33 < h33 h33. but look i know its not fair for you. :(( thats why i want to help! equius is a highblood and highbloods are notoriously stupid about slaves and slave thingys, especially when there's red romance involved.  
AC: :33 < er, which i hope wasnt being indiscr33t :SS  
TT: No, it's cool. If you're his moirail I guess I figured you would know about our furtive bathtub makeouts.  
AC: :33 < you kissed him while in the ablution trap??? :oo oh my god thats so cool  
TT: Wow, look at all this subject change I just found underneath the couch cushions. So you'll talk to him about what I asked?  
AC: :33 < yes of course. i can tell this has been bothering you dirk! you have not wanted to roleplay with me in many days.  
TT: What can I say? Horsebot 3000 will not ride again until the sweet breeze of freedom musses the phosphorescent fiberoptic threads of his robomane.  
AC: :33 < h33 h33 h33 yesssss :DD  
AC: :33 < youre a good guy dirk and i will definitely help you any way i can. just remember what i said about not doing anything drastic.  
TT: That absolutely is a thing that I am not even considering.  
AC: :33 < oh good :33 bye dirk!  
TT: Later.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased trolling arsenicCatnip [AC]

Dirk was perfectly happy to take Nepeta's advice and chill out for a bit, just let AR do his investigation thing, let Nepeta do her moirail thing, let Equius do his make out with Dirk thing, until the other shoe dropped. The other shoe, now that Dirk thought about it, had been hanging by one frayed lace the whole time, and he should have realized it sooner.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

TT: So.  
TT: Bad news.

This was a typical AR greeting, so Dirk wasn't too worried at first.

TT: More upsetting horse porn found on the Troll Wide Web?  
TT: I feel your pain, bro.  
TT: No. You better have a seat. This is bad.  
TT: I found them.  
TT: How is that bad?  
TT: Legule appears to have sold them to a gang of interplanetary racketeers.  
TT: OK, that does sound worrying, but on the other hand: space pirates.  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: Being space pirates, they're mostly completely off the grid. I'm lucky I was able to find any evidence of them, but I hacked into their ship's network pretty easily.  
TT: Nice guy. We had a cool chat.  
TT: Who is?  
TT: Their ship's computer. I'm not sure if their computer is a replicated consciousness like I am, or just some guy whose brain they ripped out and stuck in their ship.  
TT: Do trolls...do that?  
TT: Well, I hope not, but that was sort of my understanding after the computer and I had a long discussion about what it's like to go from having a corporeal form to being a collection of mental and dialogic processes. It was cool, like talking to a kindred spirit.  
TT: ...Why am I reading all this shit about your robofeelings? What the hell is this?  
TT: Oh shit. You're stalling.  
TT: What is it?  
TT: Dirk, they're pirates. They've purchased all three, Jake, Jane, and Roxy, and they're headed off-planet in three nights' time.  
TT: The Alternian Empire has a very strict policy about visiting adults, so strict that even your run-of-the-mill, devil-may-care space pirate isn't likely to get on the wrong side of it.  
TT: They won't be coming back here for at least three sweeps.

**== >**

Nepeta wasn't answering. Equius was out, and red text kept flashing up in front of Dirk's eyes. It was getting harder and harder to ignore it, since he knew it was the AR trying to talk him down.

Once he had seen the big picture, once the AR had finished his tortuous explanations of the situation and its utter shittiness, Dirk began to plan. Knowing exactly where the three were and not being able to get to them before they were flung across the cosmos was maddening. There was literally no other option but escape for him at this point; it was the only way his brain could handle the news, and you would have thought the AR, of all people, would be able to see that.

TT: He's coming back.  
TT: Come on, dude. You can't dip tonight. You just can't.  
TT: Just watch me.  
TT: This is stupid. I know that you must see that this is stupid.  
TT: Dirk. Don't ignore me.  
TT: Bro.  
TT: Come on.

The red text went on like that, flashing like a migraine in the corner of Dirk's vision. He did successfully ignore it and went on stealing the key, which wasn't difficult since Aurthour was very uncaring about that sort of thing. Aurthour was very uncaring about most things, Dirk included. The feeling was mutual, though; for whatever reason, Dirk had had a difficult time striking up a bond with the stoic, silent, completely white manhorsebutler guy.

The AR was right, of course. Equius had only gone into town for the evening and would be back well before morning. Dirk planned to not be there, though. It no longer mattered to him when Equius would return, what his temper would be like when he did, whether he would want to pin Dirk down to the ground and kiss him or just punch him. It wasn't Dirk's problem anymore.

The house was huge, and Dirk had never been allowed to leave out the back door. He knew the front part of the house better, but that section was almost impossible to hide in; it was too well lit, unlike the dank, dreary back section. Dirk took his chances; he knew there was a neighboring mansion, but it appeared to be on the other side of a massive ravine. The neighbors, hopefully, wouldn't bug him, and he could use the ravine for cover.

It was the darkest part of the night when he made his escape. He had loaded up the shitty secondhand sylladex Equius had given him for the mechanic work. It contained the protein bars that Equius ate which tasted like processed cardboard, several pints of milk (which Dirk had taken to drinking despite the AR's warnings), and a jerry-rigged weapon made out of a spare robot leg. He hadn't been allowed a strife specibus, so in the event of an altercation he would have to improvise; the sylladex was also weaponized with various other metal odds and ends.

All of Dirk's careful planning, which he had been giving thought to ever since he had been sold, operated under a very basic assumption, which was that he wouldn't fuck up and lose his footing on the steep ground between Equius' hive and his neighbor's. This was an assumption that was apparently asking too much.

It started with a just a few rocks crumbling underneath his feet. Then his footing started to slip away, so he leaned forward and kept his body closer the ground. He continued to slide, though. Suddenly he fell to his hands and knees and began to slide down the hill in earnest. At first he thought that he had just lost his footing, but a second later, with a sickening _click_ noise, he realized: he hadn't fallen, he had been dragged. It had been so dark out he couldn't even see it.

He didn't get a good look at his attacker until it grabbed him and brought him out of the shadow of Equius' hive into the reddish-pink of the moonlight. With the red cast of the light over everything, it was like looking at something out of a nightmare. 

A giant spider was living between the ravine between Equius' hive and his neighbor's, and it was holding Dirk upside down by the pant leg, inspecting him with a hundred bug eyes. It brought him closer and made a clacking noise with its pincers that almost made Dirk's heart stop.

It paused, though. Dirk had just had the idea of unbuttoning his pants and trying to run away in his underwear when another of the spider's legs grabbed him by the upper arms, pinching and digging its spurs into the flesh.

The pincers around its mouthparts clicked again. He was less than ten feet away from them, and maybe it was the smell or the blood rushing to his head or some odd, mostly useless instinct, but something told him that many, many people had met their ends this way, staring into the glistening fangs of the spider as it considered them, smelling the fear of other poor, previously-masticated fuckers.

The spider didn't eat him, though. It loosened its grip on his now bleeding arms and ran a surprisingly gentle claw over his head, like it was combing his hair. Dirk shuddered before he could help himself. 

It was studying him, he thought. It was feeling his head, wondering why he didn't have any horns. Once it sated its curiosity it would eat him, but for now it was holding him and letting him get rigid with horror.

With a ripping motion, it tore its leg away from Dirk's head and flung him away. He went flying through the air and just had time to see the ground of the other side of the ravine coming up to meet him before he landed.

He didn't break any bones, which was more than he expected. He groaned and rolled over, sat up, and was instantly pinned by a set of ropes that seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

"What the fuck?" he asked. Apparently catching a break on this utterly botched escape attempt was unheard of. The material binding his hands and feet was tight, soft but strong and cutting into him. It felt like spider silk, which seemed likely enough.

"Well then," said an amused voice. "You took the quick way in, didn't you?"

Dirk only groaned again. "Let me go. How did you even--fuck. I hate spiders. Can I just say that?"

He heard someone walking over to him, and suddenly felt a sharp prod on his side. "Say that to my fucking face," she said, and grinned a smaller version of the giant spider's fangs at him.


End file.
